Lumpkin Family Foundation

July 15, 2010

I.State of the World

II.Building Resilient Communities

If a path to the better there be,

it begins with a full look at the worst.

Thomas Hardy, 1887

Winds of Change

Population

Peak Oil

Climate Change

Ecosystem and Resource Decline

Global Finance

Social Anarchy

Population

World population has increased from one billion people in 1800 to 6.8 billion today, and continues to increase by one billion people every 14 years.

Meanwhile, the majority of the current population lives in poverty, 2 billion lack access to clean water and sanitation, and 1 billion are hungry.

Ninth

Eighth

Seventh

Sixth

Fifth

Fourth

Third

Second

First Billion

Number of years to add each billion (year)

All of Human History (1800)

130 (1930)

30 (1960)

15 (1975)

12 (1987)

12 (1999)

14 (2013)

14 (2027)

21 (2048)

Sources: First and second billion: Population Reference Bureau. Third through ninth billion: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (medium scenario), 2005.

World Population Growth, in Billions

United States in 2009

Population = 307 million

Annual increase = 3,461,200

49 million are “food insecure”

Peak Oil

The rate of global oil production has peaked and is entering permanent decline.

No combination of alternative energy sources can fill the emerging gap between global demand and supply of oil.

World Energy Use

No silver bullet

Tar sands

Shale gas

Nuclear power

Hydrogen

Solar

Wind

……………………

Climate change

The nearly 1°C increase in average global temperature during the last century is largely caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and has resulted in major biological and physical changes.

Further increases of 2°C to 7°C are projected for this century along with impacts ranging from severe to disastrous.

Current effects of global warming include:

Expansion of arid regions

Acidification of oceans

Melting of glaciers and arctic sea ice

Forest decline

Stronger storms

Spread of diseases

Sea level rise

Additional warming this century:

Likeliest range 2°C to 7°C

European heat wave – August 2003

Temperatures exceeding 38 °C; hottest August on record

35,000 deaths

10% of Portugal’s forests burned

$1.5 billion crop damage

Record glacial melt

Low rivers disrupt transport and drinking water supplies

Averaged across the continent, temperatures were 2.3 °C above normal.

Ecosystem and resource decline

Every major global ecosystem is in decline along with their ability to provide resources and services essential to human well-being.

About 50 mm (almost 2 inches) per hectare (2.5 acres) of soil blew away from cropland in Kansas during the winter of 1995-96. That's the equivalent of 650 tons of topsoil per hectare.

An unstable global financial system

Fiat currencies and a debt-based monetary system require infinite economic growth, while a finite planet ensures that infinite growth is impossible.

Exponential increases in money supply, private and public debt, and financial derivatives make major disruptions of the global financial system likely in the near future.

Total debt obligations of the US government exceed $70 trillion.

And then there is:

Consumer debt

Trade debt

European and Third World debt

Financial derivatives

Which combined dwarf the US government debt.

GDP of the planet = $58 trillion!

Social anarchy

Worldwide, central control by national governments is declining as power shifts to private enterprises, criminal groups, militias, tribes, or general lawlessness.

Collapse

Taken together, these trends are symptoms and causes of an irreversible collapse of the global economic and social system.

In response, communities worldwide are relocalizing their economies and increasing their resilience in order to survive and even prosper.